A form processing program is a program for overlaying field data onto fields predetermined in a form, which enables field data in accordance with field attributes of each field to be overlaid.
Field attributes are information each field individually holds for filed data overlaying, including a data type such as character type, numerical type and date type. Traditionally, the format of field data effective for a data type defined as a filed attribute is specified in specifications of a form processing program. For example, a format “2001/12/03” is specified for field data for a date-type field.
A data source of field data is, however, usually not only utilized by a form processing program but also often read and written by other applications. Accordingly, the storage format of the data is not always that specified by the form processing program.
In prior-art methods, it is necessary to convert field data stored in a data source in accordance with formats specified by a form processing program (that is, to process the field data into formats suitable for the form processing program) before overlaying it onto fields.
Furthermore, when overlaying field data directly from a database onto fields, the field data must be stored in accordance with the formats specified by the form processing program. Thus, when using the same data table created for a database for other purposes, it is necessary to devise in designing the database or create a separate table.